A Tainted Land

A/N: This is my attempt on a really good Labyrinth fic! Some of you may have read my other one, but I'm not fond of it, and I know some of my readers didn't much like it either. But I'm going to pour my heart and soul into this one and have a lot more organization figured out for it. So please enjoy, and please give me feedback whenever you can! If you don't tell me what I'm doing right or wrong, I can't improve for you. :) By the way, many will get slightly confused in this chapter I'm sure because Jareth is not in it! So just a warning, he might pop in somewhere in the next few chapters, but not with Sarah. Hang in there and he'll appear eventually. Bwahah.

Added Note: 01/24/2017- I'm going through and trying to fix some issues throughout the chapters. Thank you for reading everyone. 3

Chapter 1: Careful What You Wish For

What you want is never what you need
Is never what you need
Be careful what you wish for

Lose your pride
If it's what you come back to
Lose your pride
Realize this was never about you

This time you can't save yourself

A sizzling sound, paired with the sweet and savory smell of bacon filled the old Victorian house. A house that had seen fights, dramas, cheers of joy, and unwelcome visitors over the many years. Sarah Williams stood at the stove in her family's kitchen, cooking something for her little brother, Toby, to eat before he did his homework. She looked very much like she always had, pale skinned with sparkling emerald green eyes, and jet black hair that fell straight down her back. Over the years it had grown very long, easily setting at her hips, which had flared out into gentle curves as she grew into a young woman. Toby sat chattering to himself at the kitchen table; his brown hair a shaggy mess on his head, and his eyes a warm brown hue. He was seven years old, putting Sarah at a ripe age of twenty-two. But even as a twenty-two year old she was still shouldered with the responsibility of watching her little brother while her parents went out to dinner and shows every Friday and Saturday.

"Sar- Whatcha cooking?" Toby chimed up, scraping his chair back and forth across the kitchen floor. It made a horrid screeching noise which made Sarah cringe, her shoulders bunching up and her lips pursing.

"Toby! Stop that!" She shivered as he refused to stop. "Toby!" she whined, turning on him with a spatula in her hand, "I'm making breakfast for dinner, your favorite. Stop or I'll eat it all myself!" she warned. Toby paused in his noise making and grinned. "There…good…" she smiled and turned back to the stovetop. The bacon was finished so Sarah grabbed a plate from the cabinets above her and fished it all out onto the plate. Eggs were pre-cracked into a bowl beside her so she poured them into the bacon greased pan.

"Mom never lets me eat the grease…" Toby said with a snicker. "Says it will make me grow boils!"

"Karen just doesn't know how much better it tastes, Toby…" Sarah said with a smile as she stirred the eggs around in the pan to make them scramble. She waited a few minutes until they looked almost done and then she turned the heat off and scooped them out onto another plate. "Toast?"

"Yes!" Toby ran over to the cabinets and opened the bread box, bringing Sarah a loaf of white bread. Sarah looked down at it and tsked at her little brother. "But Saraaah! I don't want the wheat bread!" Toby stomped his foot on the floor and Sarah shook her head. "SARAH!" he cried, his pitch so high that Sarah hissed in pain.

"Toby! Be quiet!" she growled, slamming the spatula down on the counter and grabbing the bread from his small hands.

"BUT I DON'T WANT IT!" he cried as his face contorted into a face of pure despair. His eyes were scrunched shut and his face was turning blood red as he held in what Sarah assumed was a very loud scream.

Before he could release the built up scream she sighed and grabbed some white bread from the load he had brought to her and shoved it in the toaster, "There…happy? Go sit down!" She huffed as she put the bread away. Toby sniffled for a moment, seeming surprised that he had gotten what he wanted, but then did as he was told and ran to the table. Sarah popped the toast up a few moments later and grabbed the butter out of the fridge. She reached for another plate and scooped some eggs, several slices of bacon, and a piece of toast onto it for Toby. "Now eat up, then it's time for homework…" she reminded Toby as she set the plate in front of him with a fork. He looked irritated by the reminder and ignored her as she went back to get her own dinner on a plate.

"What time are mom and dad coming home?" Toby asked, causing Sarah to turn around and glare at the young boy.

"Why? Toby they're going to make you do your homework too…" Sarah sighed.

"But it's Friday night, Sar!" Toby reasoned. "I can just do it tomorrow during the day!"

"But you won't…you'll play all day and then you'll forget and you'll have to rush around on Sunday to finish it…Just do it tonight!"

Toby stuck out his bottom lip and it trembled, several bread crumbs sticking to it as he watched Sarah with his big brown eyes. "I wanna play after dinner, Sarah…" Toby whimpered. "I wanna play with my gremlins!" Toby was referring to several new stuffed fantasy toys Sarah had found for him at a yard sale the previous weekend. The little creatures were creepy to her, but she knew Toby liked things like that. They were about six inches tall and had skinny little bodies, with giant bat ears sticking out of the sides of their head. Some had red eyes, and a few had yellow, and there body was a mixture of tuffs of fur and rough scales. At least they were only stuffed.

"Toby…please…I'll help you do the homework…I just want you to get it done…." Sarah insisted once more, lifting her fork to her lips and taking a large bite of eggs. She was starting to really dislike the idea of ever having kids if they were going to be as big of a handful as Toby was.

"Gremlins! Gremlins! Gremlins!" Toby started to chant, banging his hands down on the table, fork in one fist and cup in the other. Sarah stared at him with wide green eyes, disbelief clear on her face. He was never so rowdy! "GREMLINS GREMLINS!"

"Ugggghh! I wish the- ."

"GREMLINS!"

"Gremlins would take me away! Right now!" Sarah screamed, "Wait? What!" She stared, open mouthed at Toby, who was laughing softly before the kitchen suddenly disappeared. Sarah was no longer sitting in the kitchen of her family's home but instead she was falling to her butt on a cold stone floor. She made a yelp of surprise and grumbled softly. Before looking up from the floor she noticed a pair of shiny black boots tapping on the floor before her. A sudden memory flared through her mind. The Labyrinth! "Oh God…" she whispered, fully expecting to see Jareth, the Goblin King above her. But something wasn't right. She hadn't said anything about the goblins, she'd accidentally said gremlins!? What did that mean? Sarah slowly looked up to find someone else looking down at her, his lips pressed into a thin line of agitation.

The strangest eyes stared down at her, the pupils were yellow, while the irises were black, a complete reverse of any pair of eyes she had ever seen. His skin was flawless and oddly enough reminded her of milk chocolate. Raven colored hair fell down to his mid-back and seemed to be tied back with something. The strange man wore black pants, tight fitting to reveal everything about his lower body, and he wore no shirt. His chest was sculpted and firm, strange black markings covering it much like a tattoo. "I…Where am I?"Sarah questioned.

"You do not know? Girl, you summoned my kingdom to take you away, yet you know nothing of what you wished?" the man said, his voice dripping distaste. "This is the Kingdom of Dorcha, of the Underground. The Gremlin Kingdom…." He snapped. "Stand up!"

Sarah sat in confusion for a moment, but then quickly stood as he demanded. She felt suddenly out of place in the castle. She looked around the room and noticed several other individuals standing about in similar clothes as the man before her, and the women were wearing fancy dresses. She wore a simple pair of blue jeans and a red long-sleeve shirt, certainly not something normal for where she was. The room looked to be a throne room, with one large stone chair in the center, a black carpet set before it to run down the room. Sarah's face contorted in disgust, her eyes brows knitting together and her lips twisting as she saw what looked like Toby's gremlin toys running around at everyone's feet. Long, detailed tapestries hung from the stone walls, and a large window broke the wall apart, letting moonlight spill into the room.

"Child- Name…what is your name!" demanded the man.

"SARAH!" cried a woman from the corner of the room. Sarah's attention immediately fell on the person who seemed to know who she was. The woman had creamy white skin, contrasting strongly with the blood red gown she wore. It had a scooping neckline and cut off sleeves, lined in sparkling crystals. Her hair matched Sarah's perfectly, however it cascaded down her back in curls. As the woman approached Sarah, she looked into green eyes that matched her own.

"Mom?" Sarah questioned, eyes squinting as if the image before her would disappear. The woman looked exactly as she had when Sarah was young, except better. She had an ethereal glow to her that didn't seem human.

"My baby! Not my baby….Davyn…send her home…Please…please send my child home…" the woman begged as she clutched the dark man's arm. He shoved her away and shook his head, looking back and forth between mother and daughter.

"Maria…this is your daughter? You had a child aboveground?" he said, his tone of voice growing more dark with each word. Maria took a step back and seemed afraid, her hands shaking and her lips trembling. She nodded very slowly and suddenly Davyn was furious. He grabbed Sarah's wrist and roughly pulled her to him, dragging her towards a heavy door on the other side of the room. Maria screamed and shouted after them, but several men stepped in and restrained her. "It is one thing for your wife and Queen to run away from her Kingdom, but it is another thing entirely for her to bear a child with another man…." Davyn growled quietly under his breath.

"You're a King?" Sarah asked. The grip on her wrist was painfully tight and she gasped as it tightened with her words. "Where are you taking me?" she questioned. Davyn ignored her words and dragged her down the hallways of his caste, the walls hung with pictures and antique artifacts. They came to a door, which he kicked open and shoved Sarah past. "Hey!"

Sarah was about to ask him more questions when the door was slammed in her face and she heard the distinct sound of a lock sliding shut. "Damn it!" she cursed. Sarah tried the door anyway, just in case she imagined him locking the door, but it was useless. She was stuck. A quick glance around the room told her she was in an office. There were several cushioned seats surrounding a dark oak coffee table in the center of the room. Farther back near a large window was a desk, many papers and quills covering it. Bookshelves lined the room, and low flamed candles allowed flickers of light to pass through the room. "Why couldn't I have said goblins?" she whispered, desperately wishing it was Jareth she was in trouble with, not some stranger.

The most important question in her head was about her mother. How was her mother in the Underground? She was a Queen? Or was a Queen at least. Was that the reason she left her father and her as a young child? Did she get forced to come back to Davyn's side? Sarah shuffled around the room for several minutes before she collapsed onto one of the chairs. "I want to go home….What about Toby…." She whispered, "Oh Toby…" she cried, her head falling into her hands. "Karen is going to be furious if she finds you all alone…." She shook her head and groaned.

It seemed like ages passed, but eventually the door creaked open and Sarah slowly lifted her head to glare at the man in the doorway. King Davyn, King of the Kingdom of Dorcha, or in other languages, Darkness.